The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes (33 page)

             
I must have turned purple or something because they
all laughed but the Brigadier held up one hand and the laughter died. "I only meant," he said, "that they were quite normal ears, that's all, but you don't see yet, any of you, what I'm getting at, nor should you, I suppose." He paused to collect his thoughts and then continued.

             
"There was a frontal brow ridge on this thing's forehead, which I think now nothing more
than the Neanderthal Man had. But it was a high forehead, not ape-like. And there was a goodish bump at the skull's back, which I believe is the occiput
—"

             
He paused again and then came out with his full thought, one he'd
apparently
been skirting for some reason. "What I'm driving at is this: Aside from the enormous size, for the creature was seven foot tall at least, and the massive bulk and the pelt of course, what I was looking at was no ape at all but a
crudish
sort of very large man, a giant man with fur all over him."

             
I must have been brooding subconsciously about my own ears and Ffellowes' remark, because I saw a point or two I thought he'd missed and that made me bold, bold enough to interrupt, something I had seldom dared as did few others when one of the Brigadier's stories was in progress.

             
"Excuse me, Sir," I said quickly, "but what about those great claws you said you'd seen. Claws on both toes and fingers, wasn't it?"

             
I was afraid I'd made the greatest tale-teller I ever knew angry when those blue eyes hit mine as he was about to speak. He only smiled a
little
though and just kept talking.

             
"Parker has a point there," he said to all of us. "Glad he made me think and remember. They weren't claws, they were immense, crooked fingernails, uncut, sharp and filthy." He ruminated a moment and then went on. "I may be wrong but they looked as if they'd been filed sharp, you know and I looked carefully. Yet, that wasn't the main reason I looked so long at those great hairy hands. On the right
middle finger, clenched in that death grip around the spear handle, I saw a glint of something bright. I parted the fur with my pistol barrel and there it was, a huge gold ring!

             
"It was quite smooth, though very large and had a big green stone in the center, a dull circle of what looked to me like jade. It made me catch my breath to see it on the hand of this awful brute and I turned to point it out to Lucas and George.

             
"Neither one seemed much surprised. I guess they had lived too long with the thought of marvels to be as impressed as I was. Lucas gave a purring chuckle and then said, 'These bad place thing, these killer men of the mountain dark, they rich. They got
gol
' and jewel to hide,
mebbe
an' that why then don' come out and kill whoever try come in here.' What it was that stuck in my throat about his comment was not the idea of a hidden treasure. No, it was the way both he and the younger chap quietly and directly took the thing I had killed to be ... a man!

             
"I mentioned this, commenting on the fur and the lack of any clothes as well. They were not impressed, either of them, by these arguments. 'They wild things, bad things, these men,' said Hooper. 'Try to kill us or anyone that come here,
Cap'n
. Look hard at that shape, the head, that
shahp
speeah
he got
.
An' the
fingah
ring too. That ain't no animal,
Sah
. No way. In
ol
' time, the Bible say these men live an' whatever live in his mountain, it very
ol
'. Remember,
Cap'n
, it tell in the Book "an' Esau were a hairy man"?'

             
"That remark finished the argument for me. I'd come to much the same conclusion anyway, and if the Bible were going to be quoted against me, I'd better keep my trap shut
.
Frankly, you
chaps, I thought I'd found a member of some lost race of what used to be called Missing Links, some creatures that had survived in a lost wilderness long after Homo sapiens had risen and cleared the Earth of his more brutish relatives, save for the few lingering colonies of great apes like the gorillas. The thought of what a great discovery
we'd made danced through my brain but Lucas' next words drove the idea far away.

             
"He wasted little time. 'We got to get rid of this 'un,' he said bluntly. '
Mebbe
other ones come
aftah
him and follow he tracks. Bury him quick, that what did ought to be did!'

             
"I had no argument with this remark either. Guns or no guns, we'd stand no chance against a mob of these creatures even in daylight, not in this thick bush, while at night they'd smother us.

             
"Working by the light of our torches, always kept pointed down, we scratched up the soft earth and moved the rocks in it until we had a pit three feet deep cleared. Before we shoved the reeking body into it, I used my big knife, of which more later, and hacked off that ring, throwing the severed finger into the pit I pocketed the ring. I was going to have some evidence of something, anyway. The other two said nothing and for all I know, assumed I had just used the rank I had as leader to grab a piece of loot first
.

             
"When we'd finally got that enormous body dumped in and wiped our hands on leaves and grass, we simply stamped the earth hard and flat for we'd shoved the loose dirt and rocks back in and covered our work as thoroughly as we could.

             
"It wouldn't have deceived a policeman or even a skilled woodsman, not for long, but in a jungle where rot works fast and growth faster, both Lucas and I knew it would soon be quite
unfindable
.

             
"Then, I raised another point I had overlooked in the excitement and which I'm sure all of you have been puzzling over. I asked Lucas, the skilled woodsman, what he thought about the sound of our three shots.

             
"He didn't seem concerned or even much worried. '
Remembah
, Captain, what I tell you about hunting along the edge of this bad place? Lots of them Injun down in the low country got guns. Here in this little hole,
wit
all those frog an' bug sounds, if anyone, even us like,
heah
a shot or
two, it
soun
' far off and not
clost
—
' He thought for a minute and then added a word. 'Somehow, I feel
shuah
this killer man come alone an' he won' be missed by them other things till day come or
mebbe
longer.'

             
"We were all silent then and deep in thought
.
My own ideas were simple for the hunter's last words had brought out another thing I'd managed not to consider.

             
"Whatever we had killed, it could not be alone. To keep a whole area inviolate and under a blanket of fear and avoidance for countless years, perhaps countless centuries, there had indeed to be more than once specimen of whatever he had been. I was now thinking of he and not it myself, you see.

             
"Well, dawn finally came, as it does in the Tropics, as fast as the dark falls. A red glow in the East changed to bright morning sunlight in a few seconds. We packed our stuff and set off again, but I had them both do as I did and unfasten and tuck back the flaps on their pistol holsters, for a quick draw if needed.

             
"We climbed slowly and watchfully for three hours and I then called Lucas back and George up from the rear. I explained that we needed two things, a rest and a '
cleanoff
'
. The ticks and crawling bugs had got all over me during the night and were driving me wild. Also, we'd had no morning grub, having decamped in a hurry from our haunted lair under the cliff.

             
"We were following up a fair-sized stream at the time and Lucas looked at the water thoughtfully. Suddenly his face lit up and he slapped his leg. He said only one word, unintelligible to me and that was '
Billums
!' I had no idea what he meant but dutifully followed as he set off at a tremendous pace, still following the noisy brook up and over the rocks and screens and ducking under tree branches and vines as we did so.

             
"About 10:00 A.M. we suddenly hit the top of the biggest rise we had yet seen. Lucas waved us down flat on our stomachs and we all peered over the rim of sharp rock. The stream, now icy-cold and ten feet across, was pouring over the cliff or hill edge very close on our right
.

             
"There before us lay a broad stretch of savannah,
mostly
tall grasses and a few scrub trees. On the far side, almost half a mile away, a belt of tall forest began again. But what Lucas was looking for lay much closer, no more than a hundred yards off. It was a long, crystalline pool, fringed by ferns and aquatic shrubs, all low except at the upper end where the stream entered and the lower where it left to flow over the hill. But we were at an angle and could see it clearly, all sixty feet or so of its length. At a signal from Lucas we sneaked over to the taller shrubs near us and then to the lower edge of this lovely water.

             
"Lucas said he would take first watch and told both George, who was equally at a loss, and I to take off everything and lie in the pool with only our heads out
.
We were not to move, even though things tickled us! We would come to no harm and we would have no bugs left in a minute, or even less. While on watch, he, Lucas would debug our clothes and then we would watch while he immersed himself in turn.

             
"Ye Gods that water was cold! Not icy but we were hot and sweaty and plain filthy as well. After a second shock, it felt heavenly and I lay back to watch a pair of hummingbirds, flickering close by over some arum plants growing from the water. Then, suddenly I felt a series of tugs all over, as if someone were pulling my body hairs in six different places.

             
"Both George and I jumped with a start, for he'd felt the same thing! I looked at Lucas on the bank above me and he was grinning widely, a thing I seldom saw that impassive chap do. Then I looked down at my body, all visible in the utterly clear water. I was surrounded by
little
fishes, some very brigh
tl
y colored. They were darting in and out all over me and pulling off every tick, ant or bug on my body.

             
Sometimes, they would grab a hair by mistake and that was the 'tickling.' Lucas murmured
his word again and I had my first experience with the '
Billums
'
, the tiny, tropical fish he had been looking for to get us all clean. I relaxed again for I knew the piranhas of the Amazon did not come this far to the North.

             
"Well, he was right again. In five minutes we were quite clean and we climbed out and traded places while he went in himself. Once in our now debugged clothes again, we felt wonderful, being clean as well. Lucas had not been in the water a minute and I was searching out food with George when we heard an acid hiss like that of a huge snake. It was Lucas and his immobile head was facing the other end of the pool. We had slacked on our sentry job but he had not
.

             
"We flattened ourselves behind a bank of foot-long, giant arum leaves and slid our
Enfields
forward. I saw nothing at first but soon noticed a waving of leaves coming our way down from where the upper stream entered the pool. The motion stopped near the water and we waited, ready, we thought, for anything.

             
"We were wrong. No one was ready for the most wonderful sight I ever saw. The bushes parted suddenly and out stepped a woman, the most glorious sight of my not too hum-drum life.

             
"She was nearly nude and very tall. She wore golden breastplates and a broad golden belt, all set with pieces of jade and what looked like dark shining stones, not the dull glint of jade. When I say she was nude, I felt for a moment I had made a mistake. Mind you, she was no more than seventy-five feet from my hiding place and I could see every detail plainly. Was she wearing a fur suit of a golden red
colour
? Her face, both broad and high-
cheekboned
, was an ochre or red tinted with bronze and as smooth as any baby's. Only then did I see the fur 'suit' was nothing but her own lovely pelt, of a dense but close-clipped hair, body hair, you know. I could see her glorious eyes plainly as she faced
the Sun; narrow and long though they were, they were a blazing brownish tint."